To the outside eye, working in a restaurant might seem like a piece of cake (no pun intended). However, as an employee in the industry for almost 3 years, I know that it is a lot harder than it seems. These 10 struggles accurately depict all the situations a worker faces daily during a regular shift.
1. Sitting a large party is like playing a game of Tetris.
A party of 20 comes in and now you have to push a bunch of tables together to make sure they are all sitting together.
2. Burning off your fingerprints.
Walking up to a table with your hands full and the party just stares at you. No worries, I’ll just continue to stand here with your hot food that is burning my hands.
3. Rude customers.
You can’t please everyone. You’re always going to get that one party who had to wait too long to be seated, then ended up not liking their table, then got angry that their wasn’t made in 2 minutes, so they left a crappy tip. Just kill the customers with kindness and a happy smile.
4. Starvation.
Working 8-hour shifts and not wanting to stuff your face every 30 minutes is nearly impossible.
5. Closing.
When the restaurant closes at 11p.m. but you have to stay for another hour to clean up and restock.
6. Slow Shift.
There is absolutely nothing worse than a dead restaurant. I rather be running around like a chicken without a head than roaming endlessly looking for something to do.
7. Short Staff.
Someone couldn’t find a cover so now there is no hostess. As if serving all your tables and running the food wasn’t a lot of work already. Now I have to sit my own parties too, okay.
8. Kitchen is backed up.
There was a mistake, which lead to the food orders to be backed up. Not only are you pissed, but now your tables are getting angry and that’s the last thing you want to deal with.
9. Sore feet.
Even though these 8-hour shifts can mean good money, nothing can cure the pain in your feet at the end of the night.
10. Poor Tipping.
Some customers don’t realize that their servers make way below minimum wage, or even sometimes nothing. It is a slap in the face when we bust our butts to give you the best service possible, and get nothing return. Tips are how we get paid.
